I caught the last five minutes of some NASCAR thing as I was waiting for the news to start, and wondered – why do racers always go counter-clockwise on oval tracks? Cars, track and field, horses, speed-skaters – all go in the same direction. How did this tradition get started?
I drove race cars for years and I really don’t know. The closest guess I could give is that the drivers of early oval track cars sat on the left side of the car just like today. As a safety measure, the cars ran CCW to keep the driver as far as possible from the wall. There is a large oval track in Australia. When they race American style stock cars, the race CCW, but when they race the Australian cars with right hand drive, they race CW.
Cecil did a column on this:http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a4_113b.html
Thanks Scruloose – I did search the archives, but did “counter clockwise” as two words. :smack:
It’s not that consistent. Horse races are run in different directions in different Australian states. In NSW, races are run CW. In Victoria, they’re run CCW.
Also, as it wasn’t quite covered in the column, there are theories that races in the U.S. typically run CCW, while races in the UK run CW, and the reason is the American Revolution. As the story goes, the young Americans wanted to distance itself from the crown so much, that they intentionally did the opposite of what the Brits did at every opportunity. I’ve heard this applied to other subjects as well.
Whether this has any amount of truth to it, I know not.
Poor research by Cecil in that column. Why ‘judge from photos’ to decide how Formula 1 racing works? Yes, it’s almost all clockwise. Looking at the first 15 seconds of each race could tell you that unambiguously. Short-oval racing in the UK is also clockwise, but speedway is anticlockwise, as is dog racing.
Twickster et al:
Check this cite, blaming counterclockwise flow on research following the clockwise running in the 1896 Athens Olympics:
http://www.gemba.com/blog/archives/000081.html
Slight /hijack/ for GM: Don’t forget, when you get to Canada, they drive on the right, I mean the righthand, side of the road, at least they did the last time I was there in 1972. Thanks for the LPO info.
Interesting cite, Ignatz! Thanks!
Depends how close you are to the equator.
At the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the IRL Indy 500 and the NASCAR Brickyard 400 are run CCW, but the Formula 1 race, using part of the oval and the twisty parts in the infield, is run clockwise.
Nice coriolus effect joke, dqa. 
Several F1 races are, in fact, run counterclockwise. One (Suzuka) is actually a figure 8.
Another thought: Most people are both right-handed and right-footed. The right leg is naturally slightly stronger, and a blindfolded rightie will tend to veer to the left when walking or running. The CCW direction simply feels more natural to the majority.
This is certainly true for skaters - for a large majority the left turn is natural (right skate leading) and the right turn takes some work. For maybe 10 or 20 percent of people the opposite is true - the same guys who ride goofy on snowboards and skateboards.
As are many go-cart tracks and home toy car race tracks. Although, when you don’t use a bridge for the crossover, you then get a good demolition derby! Yee hah!